The industry reports an increase in demand – Newspaper Kommersant No. 31 (7476) of 20.02.

The first measurements of industry sentiment in February 2023 (data available on the 16th of the month), made by analysts at the Gaidar Institute (IEP), record a continuing recovery in companies’ optimism. It comes from the September announcement of “partial mobilization”, when the optimism of IEP respondents lost four points. By February 16, the Institute’s corresponding index rose by seven points and reached a 12-month high.

The growth of industry optimism is the result of an increase in demand, which, according to enterprises, reached the best values ​​for the year in January-February 2023 and even exceeded the levels of 2018-2019. As a result, companies’ satisfaction with the achieved sales volumes has increased, and the share of normal estimates of current demand volumes has reached a record high since the start of the military operation in Ukraine, reaching 66%. However, the same level of satisfaction with demand was already recorded in September 2022. Most likely, the surge in demand is associated with an increase in military orders from the state. According to the Central Bank, the volume of incoming payments made through its payment system in January 2023 was 0.2% lower compared to the average level of the fourth quarter of 2022, but in industries focused on public consumption, the indicator increased by 18, 1%, and focused on investment demand – by 7.2%, in all other industries that provide intermediate and consumer demand, incoming payments decreased.

Despite the recovery in demand, output plans, according to the IEP, fell four points in February after a record jump in January (see chart). “Apparently, the industry decided to slightly adjust its plans, without sinking, however, to crisis pessimism. The positive balance of the indicator, which has been steadily recorded by surveys since August 2022, indicates that enterprises are still ready to move from near-zero “growth” to a clear increase in output,” says Sergey Tsukhlo, author of the study.

In practice, the industry has so far failed to realize the high optimism of output plans. The February data again fixes the balance of actual production changes within zero, where it has been since September 2022.

Artem Chugunov